January 26, 2010 T30s and T172 still in the Strait of Juan De Fuca today

This morning I received a call from Mark that he spotted a group of killer whales in the Strait of Juan De Fuca again. Although he wasn't sure who the animals were he had a feeling it was the same group we saw yesterday and invited me join him for his 1 pm whale watching trip with Prince Of Whales.

We left Victoria harbour and headed south towards Race Rocks Ecological reserve and then west in the Strait of Juan De Fuca. It ended up being quite the search and we travelled mid-strait as far west as Sheringham Point on Vancouver Island. The conditions were good for spotting but we still had a bit of a tricky time finding the animals especially as it was over 2 hours since they were last seen from the Victoria waterfront. At one point in the trip I thought I saw a male dorsal fin going down but doubted myself because there were so many logs and other debris in the water. Shortly after we turned around in the strait to head back to the east Mark spotted blows to the south of us and they were roughly in the area where I thought I saw a male's dorsal fin.


We headed towards them and sure enough it was the T30s and T172 again and when we arrived we noticed they were lunging around a harbour seal. We were expecting to see the poor thing become lunch but after about 15 minutes of the females lunging around the seal they left and joined T30A who'd been travelling away from them to the west. That was a very lucky seal indeed! It was a great sighting and we were very lucky to see the group again despite especially since it took a while to find them!

T172 and one of the T30s in the Strait of Juan De Fuca

One of the T30s surfacing near the lucky harbour seal...they left it after pushing it around for about 10 or 15 minutes!

T172 a 21 year old female "Transient" mammal eating killer whale

T30B a 17 year old female with T172

The lucky harbour seal!

Two of the whales lunging under the water and pushing the seal around

T30B

Here you can see the seal behind the whale's head

 

T30B

T172

T30A the 24 year old male

Possibly T172 with T30A

T30A

T30B and T172

T30B and T172

T30C the five year old younger sibling of T30A and T30B

Related Links

Center for Whale Research killer whale fact page

Orca Sightings Network Transient page

Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans Transient info

December ' 09 to January '10 Random stuff from life on the Harrier Explorer

Here are some photos from random events in daily life on the Harrier Explorer during seismic surveying offshore in the Gulf of Mexico. The  pictures show: bunkering (taking on fuel) procedures, a tern another MMO found on the helipad after we had some stormy weather, some rough seas, views from the helideck, receiving a delivery from another ship's workboat and firefighting drills to prepare for helicopter transfers. Enjoy!

The crew preparing to receive the tow and bunkering lines

The bunker ship comes ahead of us and releases a tow line back to our ship

Now the crew tries to recover the tow line to bring onboard and attach to one of our big ship's bollards

 Bringing the tow line on board

 The bunker ship

 Bringing the bunkering nozzle onboard

 Unfortunately the first time the nozzle was brought on board the line it was being winched onboard with snapped and then there was some trouble getting the nozzle over the cleat the second time

 ...but it finally got over!

 Attaching the bunkering hose

 On watch in the bridge

 The Ramform Viking in some not so nice seas!

Poor tern!

 Workboat coming to pick up a delivery from us to go to another ship

 View to the bridge from the helideck

 View astern from the helideck

Sending a delivery to the workboat

Ocean Explorer having a close pass with a rig

 And the rig looks like it's on the Oceans' helideck!

Crew on the helideck practicing fire drills for crew transfer day

Christmas and New Years Eve 2009/2010 on the Harrier Explorer

This was my first Christmas and New Years Eve at sea; we had the most amazing sunrise on Christmas day and the moon the morning of New Years Eve was also great!

The following 8 photos show the sunrise on Christmas morning. The rest of Christmas day was mostly a normal working day at sea with us MMOs doing our watch rotations. The galley crew did a great job decorating the mess room and we even had a Christmas tree. Christmas dinner was quite the spread and the galley cooked up: a whole pig, roast, ribs, salmon, crab, prawns, ham and calamari. Unfortunately for those of us who were more inclined to veggies there was very little selection but at least there were mashed potatoes! Of course there was lots of dessert too with loads of chocolate, cakes and Christmas pudding! Not too bad for my first Christmas at sea!

 

On New Years Eve we had a large meal which was similar to Christmas. Unfortunately for me it was quite a meat laden meal again but there was lots of chocolate to make up for it! On New Years Eve morning the moon was beautiful and although I got some pictures they don't nearly show how amazing it was. We also had a lovely sunrise but it was nothing like the sunrise on Christmas morning.